Volume VI Part 19 (1/2)

During 1917 suffrage work was displaced by war work, of which Kentucky suffragists did a large share. They were asked to raise $500 for the Women's Oversea Hospitals of the National a.s.sociation and more than doubled the quota by the able management of Mrs. Samuel Castleman of Louisville. Under the direction of Mrs. E. L. Hutchinson of Lexington a plan to raise money for an ambulance to be named in honor of Miss Laura Clay, the pioneer suffragist, was successfully carried through.

In 1918 for the first time there was every reason to believe that a resolution to submit a State amendment would pa.s.s the Legislature, but a majority of the State suffrage board voted to conform to the desire of the National a.s.sociation to avoid State campaigns and concentrate on the Federal Amendment and no resolution was presented.

At the State convention, held March 11, 1919, resolutions were adopted calling upon all Kentucky members of Congress to vote for the Federal Suffrage Amendment; calling on the Legislature to ratify this amendment, when pa.s.sed, at the first opportunity and asking it to enact a law giving to women a vote for presidential electors. Miss Clay, who for over thirty years had been the leader of the suffragists, withdrew from the State a.s.sociation, which she had founded, and formed a new organization to work for the vote by State action alone, as she was strongly opposed to Federal action. It was called the Citizens' Committee for a State Suffrage Amendment and opened headquarters in Lexington. It issued an ”open letter to the public,” an able argument for the State's control of its own suffrage and an arraignment of interference by Congress, which it declared would ”become possessed of an autocratic power dangerous to free inst.i.tutions.” It conducted a vigorous campaign against every move for a Federal Amendment and met the representatives of the old a.s.sociation at the Republican State convention in May to prevent their securing an endors.e.m.e.nt of it. In an eloquent speech before the platform committee Miss Clay urged it to reaffirm the State's rights plank in the National platform and pledge the party to secure the submission to the voters of a State suffrage amendment and to support it at the polls.

The plank adopted was as follows: ”We reaffirm our belief in the justice and expediency of suffrage for women and call upon our representatives in the Congress of the United States, in the Legislature and in all executive positions to use their votes and their influence for all measures granting political rights to women.”

The Federal Suffrage Amendment was submitted by Congress June 4. Both organizations urged their claims at the Democratic State convention in September and the platform contained the following plank:

We favor the ratification by the Legislature of Kentucky at its next session of the amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States extending to women the right of suffrage and we urge our representatives in the Legislature and all executive or other officers to use their votes and influence in every legitimate way to bring about the ratification of the same. We pledge ourselves to support in the next General a.s.sembly, if the Federal Amendment has not become operative by that time, the submission of an amendment to the State Const.i.tution granting suffrage to women on the same terms as to men and when the amendment is submitted to support it at the polls as a party measure.

Every candidate for the nomination for Governor had stood on a suffrage platform and the successful Democratic candidate, Governor James D. Black, defeated at the election by Edwin P. Morrow, was a staunch and life-long suffragist. When he was filling out Governor Stanley's unexpired term and he received a telegram in June, with all other Governors of Southern States, from the Governor of Louisiana, asking him to oppose ratification of the Federal Amendment, he gave to Mrs. Breckinridge a ringing interview for use in the press to the effect that he would not oppose it. Governor Morrow, a Republican, had always been a friend of woman suffrage in whatever form it was asked.

Kentucky suffragists could easily remember when they could poll but one vote in Congress--that of John W. Langley. When in 1919 the final vote was taken on the Federal Amendment but one of the State's ten votes in the Lower House, that of A. B. Rouse of Covington, was cast against it. There was one vacancy. Senator George B. Martin voted for the resolution and Senator J. C. W. Beckham against it. He had voted against it in February, when, having pa.s.sed the House, it was lost in the Senate by a single vote.

RATIFICATION. The November legislative election in 1919 resulted in a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. The Republicans caucused and agreed to vote for ratification. Governor Morrow urged it in a vigorous message personally delivered to the Legislature in which he said:

A government ”of the people by the people” can not and does not exist in a commonwealth in which one-half of its citizens are denied the right of suffrage. The women of Kentucky are citizens and there is no good or just reason why they should be refused the full and equal exercise of the sovereign right of every free people--the ballot. Every member of this General a.s.sembly is unequivocally committed by his party's platform declaration to cast his vote and use his influence for the immediate enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women in both nation and State. Party loyalty, faith-keeping with the people and our long-boasted chivalry all demand that the General a.s.sembly shall break all previous speed records in ratifying the Federal Suffrage Amendment and pa.s.sing all measures granting political rights to women.

By agreement, a Democrat, Senator Charles M. Harriss, presented the resolution for ratification in the Senate, and a Republican, Joseph Lazarus, in the House. On Jan. 6, 1920, the first day of the session, it was pa.s.sed by a vote of 30 ayes, 8 noes in the Senate and 72 ayes, 25 noes in the House. The affirmative vote by parties was as follows: In the two Houses 39 Democrats out of a possible 65, and 63 Republicans out of a possible 73. That any measure should pa.s.s on the first day of the session was unprecedented in Kentucky legislative history. Democrats were in control of the two Legislatures--1914 and 1916--which defeated the full suffrage measures. Democrats were in control of the Legislature in 1918 which undoubtedly would have pa.s.sed a resolution for a State amendment, a Presidential suffrage bill, or would have ratified the Federal Amendment had Congress acted in time.

The leaders of both parties by this time had seen a great light!

The delegates who had gathered in Frankfort for the State convention were entertained at a buffet luncheon by the local suffrage organization, went in a body to the State House and had the gratification of seeing the Federal Amendment ratified. A glorification meeting was held that night at Lexington, twenty-five miles away, at which Governor Morrow told why the new women voters should enter the Republican party and Judge C. S. Nunn and Senator Harriss, leader of the Senate, told why they should enter the Democratic party. The latter were introduced by former Senator Combs, who had sponsored the suffrage cause among the Democrats in the last two Legislatures. The convention closed with an address by Mrs.

Emmeline Pankhurst of England the following night, and on the next day the officers and members of the a.s.sociation went to Frankfort again to see the Governor sign the ratification.

As it was not certain that the amendment would be completely ratified before the general election in November the Legislature decided to pa.s.s a bill giving to women the right to vote for presidential electors. On March 11 it pa.s.sed the House and on the 15th the Senate by almost the same vote given on the Federal Amendment. Only three Senators voted against it--Thomas J. Gardner of Bardwell, Hayes Carter of Elizabethtown and C. W. Burton of Crittenden. On the 16th bills were pa.s.sed making necessary changes in the election laws to insure the voting of the women in the primaries and at the regular elections.

Kentucky women who rendered conspicuous service in the lobby work at Was.h.i.+ngton under the auspices of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation were Mrs. John Glover South, Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, Mrs. Edmund M. Post, Mrs. Samuel Castleman, Mrs. Charles Firth and Mrs. Samuel Henning. They were equally helpful in the State political work and among many others who deserve especial mention are Mrs. James A.

Leech, Mrs. J. B. Judah and Mrs. Robinson A. McDowell. The a.s.sociation is indebted to Mr. McDowell for legal a.s.sistance. An important factor was the press work of Miss Eleanor Hume.[56]

The organizing of cla.s.ses in citizens.h.i.+p was begun in the summer of 1919 and the services of a specialist in politics and history, Miss Mary Scrugham, a Kentucky woman, were secured to prepare a course of lectures for their use. These were published in the Lexington _Herald_ and supplied to women's clubs, suffrage a.s.sociations and newly formed Leagues of Women Citizens, soon to become Leagues of Women Voters.

The Equal Rights a.s.sociation voted at its convention in January, 1920, to change its name to the League of Women Voters as soon as ratification of the Federal Amendment was complete or Presidential suffrage granted. The league was fully organized on December 15, with Miss Mary Bronaugh of Hopkinsville chairman.

The first vice-president of the State Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation, Mrs.

South, was elected as chairman of the Women's Division of the National Republican Committee, and the second vice-president, Mrs. Castleman, as Kentucky member of the National Democratic Woman's Committee.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] The History is indebted for this chapter to Madeline McDowell (Mrs. Desha) Breckinridge, president of the State Equal Rights a.s.sociation 1912-1915 and 1919-1920; vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation 1913-1914.

[56] In addition to the presidents the following served as officers of the a.s.sociation: Vice-presidents: Mrs. Mary B. Clay, Mrs. Mary Cramer, Mrs. N. S. McLaughlin, Mrs. John Castleman, Mrs. E. L. Hutchinson, Mrs. Charles Firth, Mrs. Judah, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Samuel Castleman, Mrs. Leech, Mrs. McDowell, Mrs. Joseph Alderson, Mrs. F. A. Rothier.

Corresponding secretaries: Miss Anna Miller, Mrs. Mary C. Roark, Mrs.

Alice Carpenter, Miss Clay, Mrs. Herbert Mendel, Mrs. South. Recording secretaries: Mrs. Emma Roebuck, Mrs. McDowell, Mrs. Firth, Mrs. J. D.

Hays. Treasurers: Mrs. Isabella Shepherd, Mrs. Warfield Bennett, Mrs.

Judah. Auditors: Miss Laura White, Mrs. Charles L. Nield, Mrs. W. F.

Lillard, Mrs. Alderson. Historians: Mrs. Mary Light Ogle, Mrs. M. B.

Reynolds. Press work: Mrs. Obenchain. Members National Executive Committee: Miss Mary E. Giltner, Mrs. Post, Miss Clay.

CHAPTER XVII.